Community | Coral Gables Watch

The Poor Ignored

September 30, 2010 Leave a comment

Are there poor in Coral Gables–since they are not mentioned the presumption is that there are none. Politics described herenot unlike that observed in South Florida.

Much of America is in a nasty mood, and the language of compassion has more or less been abandoned. Both political parties serve their rich campaign contributors, while proclaiming that they defend the middle class. Neither party even mentions the poor, who now officially make up 15% of the population but in fact are even more numerous, when we count all those households struggling with health care, housing, jobs, and other needs.

Income inequality is at historic highs, but the rich claim that they have no responsibility to the rest of society. They refuse to come to the aid of the destitute, and defend tax cuts at every opportunity. Almost everybody complains, almost everybody aggressively defends their own narrow and short-term interests, and almost everybody abandons any pretense of looking ahead or addressing the needs of others.

via America’s Deepening Moral Crisis – Project Syndicate.

Filed under Community, Miami-Dade County

UM–City of Coral Gables Development Agreement

September 28, 2010 1 Comment

I have followed the discussion with great interest as a neighbor of UM.

Due to the size and complexity of the plan it is really hard to know what the process will look like over 20 years. But, clearly, we are getting the equivalent of an quasi-active commercial district along Ponce de Leon in front of the UM. Also, UM will be constructing a health facility–a “health facility” about the size of Doctors Hospital.

This plan gives UM a lot of latitude to organize its future without negotiating every detail with the City of Coral Gables. The agreement allows for the city manager to approve a lot of changes in the future, and it is hoped that we will always have a good city manager and strong boards. The city will get $1 million per year, which recognizes that the city does have costs by having UM here.

All in all, this is a good agreement.

Filed under Community, Coral Gables, Government

Somerset Gables and Biltmore Neighborhood Association

September 15, 2010 Leave a comment

At this website you can follow the Biltmore Neighborhood Association’s battle against the establishment of a 735-student sized school in their neighborhood.

Their main point–you may like charter schools, but would you want one in your backyard?

…Somerset Gables, despite Judge Bailey’s ruling to not allow more than 110 students, has filed a lawsuit against the City to increase the number of students to 735.

via Home Page.

Filed under Community, Coral Gables

City Officials Want Trust, but Want to Make the Decisions on Their Own?

September 10, 2010 Leave a comment

The National League of Cities conducted of a survey of more 500 elected officials on local democracy in the US. The 2007 is recent enough to give a clear view on the state of government and community trust and engagement.

It is very striking that while government officials complain of lack of trust and engagement, the elected officials also think that citizens trust them to make most of the decisions for the community–a contradiction in views. In other words, officials think they are not trusted enough by the citizens, but that we, the citizens, trust them enough to make decisions. Curious–sounds just a little self-serving, or not?

See some of the survey results.

Major findings from the latest National League of Cities’ State of America’s

Cities Survey of nearly 500 municipal elected leaders include:

Three in five city officials (58%) report that the lack of trust and degree

of disengagement between residents and government is a big problem in the nation, generally.

City officials are particularly concerned about the role of the media in

public life. Eighteen percent rate as poor the role of print media in contributing

to civility and responsibility in public life; 15 percent rate as poor

the role of electronic media.

Two-thirds of city officials (66%) believe that residents, business owners,

and others in their city trust the city government to do what is right most

of the time.

Over 50 percent of city officials (52%) indicate that citizen engagement

in public life of their city has gotten better over the past five years.

Over three-quarters of city officials (77%) think that their city government

is doing either an excellent (22%) or good (55%) job of reaching out

to engage residents in local decision and policy making.